Opinion of the Court.

regard to the amount in controversy, except as to appeals or writs of error to or from the Circuit Courts of Appeals in cases not made final as specified in § 6.

By section fourteen it was provided that "All acts and parts of acts relating to appeals or writs of error inconsistent with the provisions for review by appeals or writs of error in the preceding sections five and six of this act are hereby repealed," and the particular question before us is whether sections 651 and 697 of the Revised Statutes in relation to certificate of division of opinion in criminal cases, though not expressly repealed, still remain in force. If so, and such division of opinion can be certified before final judgment, then all criminal cases, including those in which the judgments and decrees of the Circuit Courts of Appeals are made final, (of which the case at bar is one,) as well as those which may be brought directly to this court, might, at preliminary stages of the proceedings, be brought before us on certificate, and, after judgment, the whole subject be reëxamined on writ of error from one or the other court. This result, in itself, we think could not have been intended, and it is wholly inconsistent with the object of the act of March 3, 1891, which was to relieve this court and to distribute between it and the Circuit Courts of Appeals, substantially, the entire appellate jurisdiction over the Circuit Courts of the United States. McLish v. Roff, 141 U. S. 661; Lau Ow Bew's case, 144 U. S. 47; Construction Co. v. Railway Co., 148 U. S. 372.

We are of opinion that the scheme of the act of March 3, 1891, precludes the contention that certificates of division of opinion may still be had under sections 651 and 697 of the Revised Statutes.

Review by appeal, by writ of error or otherwise, must be as prescribed by the act, and review by certificate is limited by the act to the certificate by the Circuit Courts, made after final judgment, of questions raised as to their own jurisdiction and to the certificate by the Circuit Courts of Appeals of questions of law in relation to which our advice is sought as therein provided, and these certificates are governed by the same general rules as were formerly applied to certificates of

Counsel for Parties.

division. Maynard v. Hecht, 151 U. S. 324; Columbus Watch Co. v. Robbins, 148 U. S. 266.

It is true that repeals by implication are not favored, but we cannot escape the conclusion that, tested by its scope, its obvious purpose, and its terms, the act of March 3, 1891, covers the whole subject-matter under consideration, and furnishes the exclusive rule in respect of appellate jurisdiction on appeal, writ of error or certificate.

Its provisions and those of the Revised Statutes in this regard cannot stand together, and the argument ab inconvenienti that, in cases of doubt below, the remedy by certificate ought to be available, is entitled to no weight in the matter of construction.

The result is that the certificate must be dismissed, and it is so ordered.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER did not hear the argument and took no part in the decision of this case.

HARRISON v. UNITED STATES.

ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA.

No. 294. Argued and submitted May 6, 1896.- Decided May 18, 1896.

A person indicted for robbing a mail-carrier of a registered mail package, and of putting the carrier in jeopardy of his life in effecting it, is entitled under Rev. Stat. § 819 to ten peremptory challenges.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. R. B. Kelly for plaintiff in error. Mr. John F. Methvin was on his brief.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Dickinson, for defendants in error, submitted on his brief.

Opinion of the Court.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the

court.

As stated by counsel for the United States, plaintiff in error was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for life under an indictment for robbing a mail carrier of the United States of a registered mail package, which charged that in effecting such robbery he put in jeopardy the life of the carrier by the use of dangerous weapons; and was based on the following section of the Revised Statutes:

"SEO. 5472. Any person who shall rob any carrier, agent. or other person intrusted with the mail, of such mail, or any part thereof, shall be punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for not less than five years and not more than ten years ;. and if convicted a second time of a like offence, or if, in effecting such robbery the first time, the robber shall wound the person having custody of the mail, or put his life in jeopardy by the use of dangerous weapons, such offender shall be punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for the term of his natural life.”

In the course of impanelling the jury, plaintiff in error challenged three persons peremptorily, and afterwards challenged one Harris peremptorily, but the court held that he was entitled to only three peremptory challenges, which he had exhausted, and overruled the challenge, to which action of the court an exception was duly taken. Harris was then sworn on the jury and sat as a member thereof on the trial. Four other persons were likewise separately challenged peremptorily, the challenges overruled, exceptions taken, and they served on the jury.

If plaintiff in error was entitled to ten peremptory challenges, five persons unlawfully took part as jurors in his conviction. Section 819 of the Revised Statutes provides:

"When the offence charged is treason or a capital offence, the defendant shall be entitled to twenty and the United States to five peremptory challenges. On the trial of any other felony, the defendant shall be entitled to ten and the United States to three peremptory challenges; and in all

Syllabus.

other cases, civil and criminal, each party shall be entitled to three peremptory challenges; and in all cases where there are several defendants or several plaintiffs, the parties on each side shall be deemed a single party for the purposes of all challenges under this section. All challenges, whether to the array or panel, or to individual jurors for cause or favor, shall be tried by the court without the aid of triers."

Counsel concedes that at common law "robbery" was a felony and that the word "rob" in the statute was used in its common law sense, and, therefore, admits that the errors assigned in respect of the action of the court in overruling these challenges are well taken. We concur in this view.

Other rulings of the court are questioned in the brief of plaintiff in error, but it is quite improbable that they will occur on another trial and we need not pass upon them.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded with a direction to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial.

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. ILLINOIS.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.

No. 217. Argued April 14, 15, 1896.—Decided May 18, 1996.

The act of Congress of September 20, 1850, c. 61, granted a right of way, and sections of the public lands, to the State of Illinois, and to States south of the Ohio River, to aid in the construction of a railroad connecting the waters of the Great Lakes with those of the Gulf of Mexico, and over which the mails of the United States should be carried. The State of Illinois accepted the act, and incorporated the Illinois Central Railroad Company, for the purpose of constructing a railroad with a southern terminus described as "a point at the city of Cairo." The company accordingly constructed and maintained its railroad to a station in Cairo, very near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers; but afterwards, in accordance with statutes of the United States and of the State of Illinois, connected its railroad with a railroad bridge built across the Ohio River opposite a part of Cairo farther from the mouth of that

Statement of the Case.

river; and put on a fast mail train carrying interstate passengers and the United States mails from Chicago to New Orleans, which ran through the city of Cairo, but did not go to the station in that city, and could not have done so without leaving the through route at a point three and a half miles from the station and coming back to the same point; but the company made adequate accommodation by other trains for interstate passen. gers to and from Cairo. Cairo was a county seat. Held, that a statute of Illinois, requiring railroad companies to stop their trains at county seats long enough to receive and let off passengers with safety, and construed by the Supreme Court of the State to require the fast mail train of this company to be run to and stopped at the station in Cairo, was, to that extent, an unconstitutional hindrance and obstruction of interstate commerce, and of the passage of the mails of the United States.

THIS was a petition for a writ of mandamus, based upon the Revised Statutes of Illinois of 1889, c. 114, § 88, which is as follows:

"Every railroad corporation shall cause its passenger trains to stop upon its arrival at each station, advertised by such corporation as a place for receiving and discharging passengers upon and from such trains, a sufficient length of time to receive and let off such passengers with safety: Provided, all regular passenger trains shall stop a sufficient length of time, at the railroad station of county seats, to receive and let off passengers with safety."

The petition was filed April 17, 1891, in the circuit court for Alexander county in the State of Illinois, by the county attorney in behalf of the State, alleging that the Illinois Central Railroad Company ran its south-bound fast mail train through the city of Cairo, two miles north of its station in that city, and over a bridge across the Ohio River connecting its road with other roads south of that river, without stopping at its station in Cairo; and praying for a writ of mandamus to compel it to cause all its passenger trains, coming into Cairo, to be brought down to that station, and there stopped a sufficient length of time to receive and let off passengers with safety.

The defendant contended that the statute did not require its fast mail train to be run to and stopped at its station in Cairo; and that the statute was contrary to the Constitution